Before & After

Hello and good, late evening everyone. I've been investing a lot of my free time learning to edit better and more efficiently. I feel that editing is such a vital part of my portraits as it gives it that extra polish to finish each piece. I do spend a lot of time making things right in camera so post-production is at a minimum (because I'd rather be shooting) and I can easily spend a few hours editing only to find that I prefer the original. (Though, I think over-editing does help me to see my unnecessary editing.) Knowing this, I'm always taking intermittent breaks when I'm editing in order to reset my thoughts.

It's so important to have a great base to edit on. With that, I mean a well-lit, high resolution photograph and a subject who, in my case has prepared herself to be photographed. I'm always trying to make sure hair and makeup is as good as I can get it before I shoot because it will save me a lot of time in post.

This edit took about 20 mins. I decided to stick with a natural glow and I wanted to keep some of the skin imperfections for a realistic look.

This photograph took a little more time to edit to get the skin perfect and the hair tidier (though I think I should have probably done a little more.) I also did some color correcting to bring some more color into her face and brought in more contrast for that extra push.

Overall, I'm loving this quicker and more efficient technique of editing and the more I do it, the quicker it gets. Once I get more efficient, I'd like to offer editing services. What do you all think?